


Wasted Hate

by Mimine101



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Not A Fix-It, Not particularly Steve friendly, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), There will be an m/m pairing but haven't decided yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-09-19 12:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9440987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimine101/pseuds/Mimine101
Summary: H3Y CPT 4SSH4TThe lights had flickered making Steve glance at the cryotube display and then to the closest monitor. He does a double take trying to convince himself that he imagined it, that the offensive alphanumeric was merely an accident. The screen quickly returns to Wakandan characters and a list of scrolling numbers, as usual. Steve isn’t reassured and doesn’t take his eyes away.CH3CK YR M3SS4G3S---------------------------------------------------------I've wanted to dip my toe in Post CW fics for a while. So here it is.





	1. Chapter 1

H3Y CPT 4SSH4T

The lights had flickered making Steve glance at the cryotube display and then to the closest monitor. He does a double take trying to convince himself that he imagined it, that the offensive alphanumeric was merely an accident. The screen quickly returns to Wakandan characters and a list of scrolling numbers, as usual. Steve isn’t reassured and doesn’t take his eyes away.

CH3CK YR M3SS4G3S

This time the words are easier to read and stay onscreen for longer. Steve rushes to the cryotube. Bucky looks the same as always and everything around seems the same but even if it weren’t, would Steve know? Wouldn’t anything go off? A panicked, jittery thought starts playing in Steve’s head “he’s dead, Bucky’s dead in there, or dying”. He’s holding onto the tube with both hands, quickened breath fogging the glass.

An impotent rage seizes Steve as he stares at the screen where the messages had appeared, teeth bared. He can just picture Tony’s gleeful expression, the ghost in the machine… What if he’s killed Bucky with just a touch of a button. So cold, so unlike anything Tony would ever do, a calmer voice tries to tell him, tries to drown the litany of “Bucky’s dead” in his head. He’s looking around for something to press and raise the alarm just as klaxons start blaring and the lights go to full brightness.

A swarm of technicians enter the previously deadly quiet lab. They flit from terminal to terminal, muttering harsh sounding words, very far removed from their usual politely condescending selves. Steve tries to get someone’s attention but is thoroughly ignored. He ends up grabbing one of the whitecoats by the wrist and dragging her over to Bucky’s cryotube demanding that she check on him.

She wrenches her wrist from his grasp. She’s a young looking, round faced woman

“He’s fine.” She doesn’t even glance Bucky’s way.

“You didn’t check!”

She exhales in frustration. “The cryotube is completely self-sufficient. There is no connectivity whatsoever. You can pick him up and take him to your room for all I care. Now excuse me, I have work to do.”

She makes an obnoxious shooing motion and Steve does get out of her way, face burning and rage shimmering just under his skin. He gives Bucky one more long look and tries to reassure himself. It’s fine, it’s gotta be fine. Tony wouldn’t attack someone in a frozen box, he wouldn’t do such a cowardly thing.

But he can’t shake disquiet of Tony’s presence there. So he knew exactly where Steve was. What if he’d hacked into the video feed… Steve had been telling Buck about what a disaster Sudan had been. Bad intel, a pointless mess of a mission and Sam’s wings seizing mid-flight. The bitter realization that it had been a local skirmish, a situation best left alone. They were Avengers, not goons for hire.

Disheartened he’d left the others and come to beg T’challa for scraps, a way to fix Sam’s gear, some guidance on how to use his own gear, the energy shield and weapons he’d appropriated from their latest HYDRA raid without anything resembling a user manual. And just to see a friendly face, even frozen in a glass tube. To ground himself. It’s Bucky and he’s worth all of this, he always will.

He heads back to his room. Figures, for next to a year he’d carried that little phone everywhere he went. He leaves it alone for one night to charge and this happens. The screen is lit. 12 messages and 3 missed calls.

T’challa makes his presence known with a heavier gait than usual and a loud exhale. Steve hadn’t closed the door.

“I received a message too. Come find me when you’re caught up.” His stormy expression matches his clipped tones. He stalks off, without waiting for a reply, practically vibrating with anger. Something tells Steve that T’challa’s message wasn’t received by conventional means either.

He opens the phone menu and navigates to the oldest message.

FIRST LET ME TELL YOU THAT I’M NOT ASKING YOU TO COME BACK. I DON’T NEED YOU.

Next message.

AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED YOU CAN EAT A BOWL OF DICKS.

Steve winces at the vulgar imagery. He navigates to the next message.

BUT THIS IS BIG AND WE NEED THE WITCH. AND THE NEWLY APPOINTED PLANETARY DEFENSE COUNCIL WANTS TO REINSTATE YOU AND BRING YOU BACK.

Planetary Defense sounds ominous. Steve moves to the next message with suddenly clammy fingers.

DON’T WORRY. THEY WON’T MAKE YOU SIGN ANYTHING.

Steve can practically hear Tony’s voice, sarcasm dripping from the characters on that small screen.

THEY ARE THINKING OF A REBRANDING, THOUGH. CAPTAIN PLANET. CAPTAIN EARTH. CAPTAIN WORLD.

Next message.

FROM CEREAL TO CLEANING PRODUCTS AND A COMPLETELY LAME CANADIAN ECO-WARRIOR ALL TITLES ARE TAKEN AS YOU MAY IMAGINE

ANYWAY, TALK TO T’CHALLA, HE’LL HAVE MORE DETAILS

The next message is timestamped about half an hour later.

WE DON’T CARE ABOUT BIRDBRAINS ONE AND TWO. IF THEY RETURN THEY WON’T BE PROSECUTED BUT THEIR BENEFITS ARE STILL GONE.

Steve grinds his teeth. Both Clint and Sam’s retirement packages were pocket change to Stark and there he was throwing their current state at his face. Clint’s family in the wind and Sam’s ailing mother forced to leave the nursing home she’d called home for the past 5 years.

He scrolls to the next message, timestamped almost an hour later.

HELL, YOU CAN EVEN DEFROST AND BRING YOUR MURDEROUS BFF

Steve draws a blank at “BFF” but the rest of the message is clear enough.

WE HAVE A SORCERER SUPREME WHO WANTS TO HAVE A GO AT FIXING HIS BRAIN

AND I WILL BUILD HIM A NEW ARM

A few minutes later. 

WITH LASERS.

Last message, timestamped 03:15 am. Steve calls the only programmed number in the little phone, nothing but static in his mind and hoping he’ll find words when the time comes. The phone rings and rings and goes unanswered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've had two weeks from hell with 12 hour workdays so naturally this was not updated. But I finally found some time so here's another little chapter. You guys blew me away with the response to my first chapter. Thank you!
> 
> \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two days later they’re in T’challa’s jet headed for the States. T’challa had known where to pick up the others, genius millionaires could track people, no surprise there. Steve’s Secret Avengers make a sorry sight. They’re whittled down to Sam, Clint and Wanda. Natasha hadn’t been his. Not really. She’d made contact with him, she’d helped him plan the operation at the RAFT, aiding him in every step from afar like a benevolent fairy godmother. But she’d vanished again. Even though Steve suspected she kept in contact with Clint there’d never been any more messages for Steve no matter how many feelers he put out.

The Ant Man, Scott Lang had helped in the escape once he got his suit back, disabling the guards with a determined efficiency but no brutality. Steve didn’t really know him but liked his type, a true hero. The moment they were on dry land again, Clint supporting a near catatonic Wanda and Sam trying to assess his wings, Scott stood still for a moment. “Lose my number,” he tossed back to Sam. “Well, Captain, it’s been real,” he said and gave him a two fingered salute before shrinking and ditching them.

Back in the present, Sam looks tired, pain etching deep lines in his face. He’s holding a clamshell that unlike Steve’s had rang plenty of times. His mother’s confused tears, his cousin’s anger and recriminations. He’d lost his benefits, he’d lost his house, his entire life down the drain. He’d never blamed Steve, only himself and that somehow made it worse.

Wanda’s expression is blank. She’s thinner than ever, lost in her baggy clothes. At least her face is uncovered.They didn’t have many photostatic veils to go around and none for women so she was comfortable in a burqa. Sometimes she wouldn’t even take it off at home until Clint would badger her enough. Not that Clint hadn’t used that as a disguise himself along with absurdly large fake breasts that had had Sam in stitches. Steve had laughed too. It’s strange how he could recall every single instance when he’d laughed in the last year.

And Bucky…Still so pale and looking smaller, somehow, sleeping curled into himself. Steve still had to remind himself that Buck was really there after he’d spent the entire thawing process with one image at the back of his head, that Bucky would simply slump forward, dead. The seconds before his friend opened his eyes had been the longest of Steve’s life. His gaze was dull at first but slowly awareness came and a small encouraging smile to Steve. Then T’challa took over to speak to Bucky in private and it was all very anti-climactic really, nothing like the triumphant reunion Steve had envisioned.

Steve closes his eyes. Buck had the right idea. A nap would help. The week Steve has had has left him running on fumes.

T’challa’s brief announcement to prepare for landing wakes up Steve. He turns to Bucky but Sam has already woken him up and is helping him prepare. Bucky is rubbing on his stump and Sam asks him about it, if it hurts or it’s phantom pain. The only answer he gets is a shrug.

A man has come to meet them at the gate. Short and blond, in a suit that screams government employee. He brightens up when he sees T’challa and gives him a warm handshake. Steve finally places him, he’s Everett Ross, CIA, Sharon’s boss. Ross’ gaze rakes over them, darkening the moment it leaves T’challa. He introduces himself, welcomes them on behalf of the Planetary Defense Council and asks them not to leave the Compound. “We will discuss the details of your status tomorrow, I’m sure you must be tired,” he says politely. “FRIDAY will show you to your rooms.”

“We know our way around,” Sam says.

A woman’s voice answers. “I’m afraid there have been some changes, Mr Wilson.” 

FRIDAY’s hologram is tinged pink. She has the appearance of a young woman, 20 at most with shoulder length hair, a very short skirt and a top showing quite a bit of cleavage.

Clint gives out a snort. “Way to go, Stark,” he mutters under his breath.

FRIDAY stands still. Sam had been walking right behind her and he gives a yelp of pain as he accidentally makes contact with her form.

“Electricity,” she explains sweetly. “Not deadly but my level does go up to incapacitating.”

“Anyone care to explain to me,” Bucky says sotto voce.

FRIDAY turns to him. “I am an Artificial Intelligence. I chose my appearance without any input from my creator,” at that she gives a pointed look to Clint. “I am present throughout the Compound. I monitor your living quarters only at the most basic level but if you ever require my assistance simply say “FRIDAY activate” and I will be at your service.”

Like JARVIS in the Tower. Steve feels a strange tightness at the back of his throat at the memory of the AI. JARVIS offering to be waking him up from nightmares. “Only if you want me to, Captain. If I’m sensing you’re in distress.” JARVIS answering his every question, even some about Tony, innocuous ones like whether there was any music he liked that wasn’t rock. Guilty pleasures, favorite foods and Tony threatening to donate the AI after being greeted with a team movie night showing of the musical Grease and a team dinner of fettucine alfredo.

JARVIS had been a voice in the ceiling but also so much more. Steve has never met FRIDAY. Tony hadn’t installed her in the Compound. Not after Ultron. A phrase from his own hastily scribbled letter to Tony flashes through Steve’s mind. “I don’t like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself." But had the Compound been any better? It would have been just as empty. Maybe that’s why FRIDAY had a body now, pinkish energy walking around. 

He realizes he’s staring and looks away, embarrassed.

“Is there something you wanted, Captain?”

“No. And please don’t call me that. I gave that up.”

A hand lands on his back.

“Oh no, don’t say that. What good are you to us otherwise?”

Everett Ross has a sharp, nasty smile. Steve closes his fist, imagines punching it out, pummeling the slight man until he’s nothing but a bloodied heap.

Ross seems to sense it too and his smile widens. Steve looks away first.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience. I had quite a difficult week in the hospital with my son who had pneumonia. Now he's home and on the mend but I have bronchitis. It's yucky. Still, I had this written down so I finally found some time to type it out and update (I write longhand, don't ask, my handwriting has gotten so bad that sometimes even I'm not sure what I wrote)
> 
> Steve's Squad is still at the Compound, being shown to their rooms by Everett Ross and FRIDAY's hologram. No Tony in this chapter but he will show up eventually, promise.
> 
> Any feedback, constructive criticism or other comment is very welcome.
> 
> \----------------------------------------------------------------------

Suddenly a smile lights up the short man’s face, making him look at least ten years younger and boyishly handsome. He makes a step past Steve, “Doctor, about time you joined us!”

The man he’s greeting certainly doesn’t look like a Doctor. If anything, he looks like a magician in a Fair, clad in a blue tunic and a bright red cape, swirling around him as he makes his way towards them. He is about Steve’s height with grey streaked hair and a goatee. Everett takes the newcomer’s hand in both of his beaming at him and the man smiles down to him fondly. The strangest thing happens, Steve could swear that the man’s cape seems to move of its own volition and gives the slight blond a friendly pat on the shoulder. Probably Steve’s tired brain playing tricks on him.

Bucky steps forward. “Doctor Strange?”

“It is good to meet you in person,” the man says with a smile. He gives Bucky a small bow that Bucky echoes awkwardly, quickly withdrawing his proffered hand. The Doctor greets T’challa next.

“Leaving right away, your Highness?”

“I’ll stay for the meeting,” T’challa says. Whatever this is, Steve and his people are not invited.

“Speaking of,” Everett says. “How about we go ahead? You’ll be joining us later, Doctor?”

“Yes, of course.”

Like that they are left with the mysterious looking man and FRIDAY. No one has bothered with proper introductions so Steve steps forward.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of doctor are you?”

The man’s pale eyes fall on Steve and there is nothing. It’s odd to encounter complete apathy. Steve is not a vain man, it’s just a fact of life for him since the serum that everyone who meets him for the first time will have some sort of reaction.

“I’m a retired neurosurgeon.” A smile tugs in the corner of his lips. He turns to Bucky.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, James. I’ll let you get some rest and we can start tomorrow.”

Bucky doesn’t correct the Doctor on his first name. Steve swallows down a sudden bitterness at the back of his throat.

The man leaves them with FRIDAY’s representation. Clint asks what Steve has been wondering all along.

“FRIDAY, where’s Tony?”

She appears to consider her answer briefly. “The boss is busy.”

“Is he in the Compound?”

“Yes.”

Sam speaks next.

“Is Colonel Rhodes here?”

“The Colonel is in Washington.”

“How is he? I saw him on TV and…”

“He is in good health,” FRIDAY replies flatly.

Steve aches at Sam’s expression. The AI is not willing to make any of this easier on them.

“What about Vision?” Wanda asks softly. “He… I was under the impression that he was going to meet me.” Her voice trails off.

FRIDAY cocks her head – so much like Tony – and gives Wanda a considering look. “He’s busy, Miss Maximoff.”

Clint barks out a laugh. “You put him in a hole in the ground. Maybe he doesn’t want to get back together.” Ever since the RAFT Clint’s anger and misery has been like a cloud over him and now is yet another of these times when he strikes out, eager to cause some of the pain he’s feeling.

His voice takes on a more respectful tone as he turns to the AI. “FRIDAY, can you pass a message to Tony?”

“Mr Barton, your wife knows you’re here. The boss invited her and your children, at his expense.” She gestures to the first door down the hallway. “This is a family apartment”, she says gently. She probably understands emotions. JARVIS definitely did and anyone human or machine wouldn’t miss the devastation on Clint’s face.

“Family,” Clint whispers in a daze.

“Clint,” Sam says gently, reaching to pat the other man’s arm.

Clint shakes himself and turns a disgusted gaze to Sam.

“Fuck off, Wilson. We’re not friends. I barely know you. Why don’t you get a life, you loser!”

Sam steps back from the force of the venomous words. Clint storms in the painfully empty family apartment, banging the door behind him. There are a couple of crashing sounds that everyone hears then Clint’s choked sobs that Steve is fairly certain only he can pick up and possibly Bucky not that he’s about to ask.

Steve places his hand on Sam’s bicep. “He didn’t mean it.”

His friend flinches and takes a step back. “Yes, he did. And he has a point,” he whispers. He turns to FRIDAY “I have a good feeling about this one, is it this one?” he points at the door opposite Clint’s. “Hope so, I don’t fit in Wanda’s clothes,” his false cheer making something tighten in Steve’s chest.

FRIDAY nods in the affirmative and takes him inside. Once in, Steve hears Sam’s voice drop, his anxious question about getting an outside line to call Washington, no doubt to talk to his mother and cousin.

Wanda’s steps suddenly falter and she leans against the wall. Her face is deathly pale.

Steve is quick to prop her up. “Wanda, when did you last eat?” His hand can practically close around her upper arm, even over her baggy shirt.

“Do you require medical assistance, Miss Maximoff?” The formal tones are at odds with FRIDAY’s very informal appearance. She leans quizzically towards Wanda who just shakes her head.

FRIDAY opens the next door down and ushers in Wanda. Steve follows them in too, concerned, leaving an uncomfortable looking Bucky at the door.

“There is a kitchenette. The fridge is small but well-stocked with items to your liking.”

Wanda just nods, face hidden under the curtain of her limp hair. She’s like an old photograph, faded with age, her hair more brown than red, a yellowish tint to her skin. It happened right in front of their eyes in the past year as she became more and more withdrawn, wasting away, her clothes going from figure hugging red to sackcloth black and her magic… Wispy and unreliable, nothing like the Wanda they knew. He was counting on Vision to help but now he’s no longer so sure.

“If Vision said he would come then he will,” he says to her.

A sob shakes the witch’s small form. “I would like to be alone now.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this is so late but life was pretty busy. Chapter kept getting bigger so I cut it in two and should be able to update fairly soon. I can't thank you enough for the incredible response I have gotten with this little fic. I hope it won't disappoint.
> 
> \-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The last door down the hall is Steve and Bucky’s room. A silent FRIDAY leads them there and leaves. Steve wanted to ask her to thank Tony for him for thinking that he’d want to keep an eye on Bucky but the AI isn’t interested in maintaining the illusion of their interaction for one more second. Not that he can’t talk to her anyway but he loses his momentum.

He opens the door to let Buck in. His friend is looking down the halway at all the other doors. What he must think… Bucky had seen the others at their best at the airport fighting, having Steve’s back and willing to sacrifice themselves. Steve had been so proud of them. Now they were a sorry sight. Beaten and bickering among themselves, back at Stark’s Compound with their tail between their legs.

They enter in silence. Bucky heads for the mini fridge and takes out a bottle of water. Steve’s heart aches and he steps forward to help as he watches Buck negotiate opening the small bottle one-handed. He settles for wedging it against the fridge and twisting it open. This is another thing that Tony had mocked Steve about in his text messages. He knew that Bucky hadn’t gotten a new arm. It’s not how Steve had thought it would go. He’d seen a real kindred spirit in T’challa. He’d seen a country so technologically advanced it seemed like something out of a futuristic novel. Naturally, he’d felt good about leaving Bucky there, confident that his friend would soon be whole again in both body and mind. However, Bucky had not been a priority to the Wakandans, not that Steve could see.

“That’s a lot of eggs.”

Bucky’s statement startles Steve out of his reverie. He comes forward to take a closer look at the squat fridge. There are literally three rows packed with eggs, a mayo, full fat with canola oil, his exact brand in fact, water and a six-pack of coke. Just as it had been in their communal kitchen, as it had been for all of them, their staples replenished unseemly, his eggs, his bottles of water and occasional indulgent coke. Wanda’s lactose-free, low fat milk, Natasha’s insane variety of often smelly cheeses, Sam’s bacon and his own stack of eggs that always lasted longer and Steve would sometimes raid. Vision would buy different things for his culinary experiments and Rhodes had never stayed long enough to have staples. He’d check on them from time to time but the army had kept him busy.

Bucky closes the fridge door gently. His gaze is very soft. Steve tries to school his own expression to something resembling normal, not this longing, this stupid urge to cry at the sight of a fridge full of eggs. Bucky needs him to be strong.

“Are you hungry?” he makes himself say.

Bucky shakes his head. “Nah, stomach is still a bit messed up from cryo. It’s normal. I’ll just turn in. Will be better tomorrow.”

He seems to force himself to speak for Steve’s benefit to keep explaining and reassuring. As if he needs to babysit Steve and hold his hand on top of everything. Steve follows him to figure out their sleeping arrangements. There are two bedrooms and they share a bathroom. He opens the door on the left and his guess is right. His leather jacket is hanging behind the door, his alarm clock, various Captain America drawings he’d received from children, his own drawings and on the bed a patchwork quilt he’d received as a gift from some ladies in an old person’s home, ladies that he should have had as neighbors in that place.

A choked gasp from th other bedroom has Steve rushing in, covering the distance in practically two strides and nearly breaking the door in the haste to open it.

“What happened?”

Bucky is on his knees on the floor in one corner of the room. He’s staring at something, reaching to touch it then pulling his hand back again. It’s a backpack.

It’s not just a backpack. Steve looks around him and recognizes books, posters, various knickknacks and a sleeping bag on the bed… Realistically it can’t be the same sleeping bag that Bucky had in Bucharest. Who would go into the trouble of getting that from Romania just to make him more comfortable? But of course Steve knows Tony would, Tony did. Tony would give Bucky back the few things he had owned in Bucharest, his first taste of humanity and choice in 70 years.

Bucky takes out a notebook, his thumb stroking gently on the cover. A piece of paper falls out of the bag. He huffs out a laugh when he reads it.

Steve reaches for the note and his friend simply hands it to him without turning to look at him.

I WON’T LIE TO YOU. AT LEAST FOUR AGENCIES HAVE GONE THROUGH THEM HOPING TO FIND YOUR WHEREABOUTS, SLEEPING BEAUTY. FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH, I HAVEN’T READ THEM.

The note is unsigned but Steve knows Tony’s smallcap, blocky script.

“FRIDAY activate.”

Steve starts, half expecting the AI to materialize right then and there.

She doesn’t. Her cool tones come after a beat. “You rang?”

“Can you pass a message to your boss from me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Can you thank him from me?”

After a short silence she replies “He wishes you a good night and says you should rest. Doctor Strange is an early bird.”

Bucky nods.

“Do you require anything else?”

“No. Thank you.” Bucky says softly.

How could it be so easy? How could it come so easy to Bucky to do this? Steve wants to talk too, ask FRIDAY to pass a message but to say what exactly? Pass his own message to Tony? He doesn’t even know what that would be… anger at how he’s snubbed them so far, gratitude that sits like a rock in his throat, a request for more information… He can’t get any of this out so he just stays quiet.

He’ll manage the few things he knows about. Bucky is meeting with that Doctor Strange fellow.

“I’ll come with you tomorrow. For moral support.”

Bucky sighs. Avoids his gaze. “I know you mean well, Steve but I don’t want you there.”

Not even mentioning that he’d talked with Strange back in Wakanda should have been a first hint but the rejection still smarts.

“You need someone in your corner, Buck.” He tries to sound neutral, not dip into the misery constricting his chest. He knows he’s failed when Bucky finally does look at him with a mix of embarrassment and pity that he’s never seen in his friend’s face before.

“What I need is a shower. I need to brush my teeth and then try to get some sleep. Can’t I just get that?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll leave you alone.”

Later he almost breaks his promise as he hears Bucky speak in the shower. He rushes to listen in and realizes he was just asking FRIDAY about how it works. Not at all unusual in one of Tony’s properties.

When it is his turn to use the shower he can’t figure it out either but he’s too proud to ask. Between freezing and almost scalding he goes for the latter and walks out of the steamy room with his skin pink and raw, like a crustacean without its shell.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for the delay but work has been beyond ridiculous and I was just informed that the release that was going to be at the end of this month was pushed to Q4. I feel like they'll discover my skeleton in front of the computer one of these days.
> 
> But, screw it, I need my fun too so I typed this out and here it is! 
> 
> Sam, Clint and Wanda with Steve in this chapter. And some flashbacks with Tony.  
> \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next day he wakes up when Bucky does. He listens to the sounds of him hungrily, still half in disbelief. Bucky’s truly back and it’s such a fragile thing. In the past four years Steve has found him only to have him snatched from him again and again. When he hears the front door he has to resist the urge to just leap off the bed and try to follow him, insist to go along like an abandoned child trailing after a parent.

A knock on his door from Sam ends up waking him again a lot later. It’s almost noon he’s embarrassed to discover but at least he can blame it on jet lag. Sam has his jacket on and is carrying a traveling bag.

“You’re leaving?” Steve asks dumbly.

“Gonna go check on my mom.”

“That’s… that’s good.”

Sam turns to leave.

“Wait! Have you seen Bucky?”

Something unidentifiable passes through the other man’s face. Steve used to think he could read Sam pretty well. This past year of their existence as renegades has disabused him of that notion. Sam’s anger ran colder than Clint’s, his sadness much better hidden than Wanda’s but it was all always there under the brave façade he put up.

“What, misplaced your Bucky already?”

“Sam…”

Sam huffs out a bitter laugh and turns to leave.

“Wait!” Steve grabs the other man by the elbow.

“I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I’m so sorry. You’re still limping, are you sure you’re good to travel?”

Sam’s flat gaze hurts like an icy hand twisting Steve’s insides.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Did you see a doctor? Isn’t there medical…” 

“I’ll figure something out.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to run their available options. “Look, my accounts are frozen, there wasn’t much there anyway but… I’ve some stuff in my room, memorabilia that could fetch a good price…”

“I don’t want your fucking autograph, Steve” Sam spits. Anger sits strangely in that usually pleasant countenance and it kills Steve to have it directed at him so openly. A part of himself just wants to yell that it’s not his fault, to order Sam to stick around and help figure this out like a team, like a family.

“Will you be back?” he asks the other man’s retreating figure.

Sam lifts his pant leg to a expose a brace around his ankle. A small band of metal with the signature sleek look of StarkTech. “That’s internment” he’d said and it feels like years ago, a different Steve, a different time. At least he himself has no reason to leave the compound. He pictures the demeaning device around his own ankle nevertheless. Petty, how could Tony be so petty?

He’s still standing there in the hallway, staring forlornly at Sam who is holding himself carefully straight, trying to minimize his limp. Steve realizes he’s shirtless and barefoot and making a spectacle of himself when a woman meets his gaze. She’s entering her room which is across from Wanda’s. She’s Asian, in a smart suit and carrying a briefcase. Tony has put them in a wing with the support staff and other strangers.

He finds the others outside. Still no sign of Bucky. It’s the afternoon and Steve’s stomach has been grumbling for a while but he hasn’t eaten. Clint and Wanda are out in the grounds even though it is a chilly day and there’s a light drizzle falling. Clint is lying back propped on his elbows and Wanda is sitting cross-legged, back very straight and eyes closed as though she’s meditating. Steve is pleased to see she’s changed to a flowy black dress that he remembers from before. It hangs on her now but they will fix this.

He greets Clint and tells him about Sam leaving. Clint replies that it’s old news, he’s said goodbye to them. Steve is outraged about the ankle monitor. “I was told you wouldn’t be prosecuted or I would have never agreed to come.”

Clint scoffs. “Do you really think you made that decision? That’s cute. Either way, Sam agreed to this so he’d leave sooner.”

“We should have a united front…”

“Oh, your butt-boy didn’t ask your permission?” Clint’s sneer rankles Steve, the way the man will just say anything, poke and prod and one day Steve will stop giving him a pass, he’ll give in to the rage choking and burning him. And Clint keeps going “Sam had shit to do. People to see. We’re not all like you. Hell, if I could somehow go back to my family I wouldn’t care if they put a fucking shock collar on me.”

Steve’s anger dissipates at the pain in Clint’s voice. “Laura will come around eventually. Perhaps if you went to the farm…”

“The farm’s empty. She packed up the kids and left once she realized I wouldn’t be returning anytime soon.”

“How long have you known that?”

“Nat told me as soon as she made contact.”

Right after he got them off the Raft then. And Clint said nothing.

“Then Nat knows where they are?”

Clint shrugs. “If she does, she’s not sharing. Anyway, she told me she will be going in deep now. There hasn’t been anything from her in two months.” Clint sounds at ease about this, he knows Nat can take care of herself.

Steve presses on. “Stark also knows where they are. If he was willing to bring them here…”

“They’re safe. Laura let me know this much. I can’t push for more.”

Suddenly Wanda opens red unseeing eyes and murmurs something. Steve recoils from the sight and turns a questioning look to Clint.

Clint rolls his eyes. “Talking to Vision.”

Several of Wanda’s strange behaviors from the past months suddenly slot together. “Has this been going on for long?”

“A bit before Somalia, I think.”

But that was months ago! She’d been compromising them like this and Clint said nothing…

Clint reads the incredulity in his face. He shrugs. “They have this weird telepathy thing going.”

Wanda and Vision, Clint and Natasha, even Sam and his cousin, they’d all had someone talking to them, touching base. What had Steve had? An unacknowledged apology letter and a silent phone. Scouring the internet for news on Tony, paparazzi pictures, anything to give him a hint of what was going on. It had all been pictures and vague reports and Steve’s one sided imaginary talks and arguments with the man, about the Accords, about Rhodes… that one had hit him like a brick. He hadn’t known but even if he had he doesn’t know if he would have mentioned it in his apology, if he would have apologized for friendly fire and for the fact that Tony still went to Siberia to help even after what happened to his best friend. Still he searched for news on Rhodes too… not a single public appearance in weeks and endless speculation. There had been a few appearances for Tony but he’d kept silent, a grim figure wading through reporters with Happy Hogan by his side.

The first time he heard Tony’s voice again it had been the night after he rescued the others from the Raft. They were in a villa in the South of France surrounded by dusty opulence and sheet covered furniture. Wanda was sleeping, still too out of it to pay attention but Clint and Sam flanked him as they sat to stare at the tablet Natasha had left for them.

Tony was standing in front of his Tower in obnoxious red tinted glasses, joking and flirting with the press. It was the pre-interview charming session, trademark Tony behavior, remembering names, complimenting the women and even some of the men, as always playing up his lovable rogue persona. But under those tinted glasses Steve could see tired eyes, that too wide grin revealed prominent cheekbones and his hands were staying buried in his pockets in feigned nonchalance. 

The interview started proper and Tony’s voice was steady as ever, so confident.

“We are regrouping.” “I don’t know where they are.” “No, I didn’t aid in their escape.”

“Didn’t do much to find us either,” Clint had pointed out. “He can track us. If he wanted us found we would be.”

The figure on the tablet screen was still fielding questions. “I don’t actually know Spider-Man’s identity. He volunteered because he could help bring them in with minimum force.”

The press hadn’t bought that one, a couple of rapid-fire questions pushed for more but Tony was steadfast in his protection of the young man in the Starktech spider suit.

More questions and Tony confirming once more that what happened to Rhodes was an accident, refusing to share any details while next to Steve Sam breathed in sharply and then left the room.

“Steve! Good morning!” Wanda’s dreamy tones pull Steve out of his memories. Her eyes are back to green and a beatific smile has softened her features.

“Wow, Wanda, it’s the afternoon and he’s been here for half an hour. Can’t wait to go on the field with you.” There is no real heat in Clint’s words. 

Wanda laughs. “Vision doesn’t hate me,” she announces triumphantly. “He simply…” her smile falters. “He realized he wasn’t ready to face me. He thought he could but…”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks, Steve. He’s worth it. He’s worth the wait. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi people! Sorry this is so late but I've been crazy busy. Getting ready to leave for Easter holidays now so I figured I'd update. 
> 
> Let me know what's working for you and what isn't. Or any other comment you feel like leaving, really.

Bucky returns that night very late, with empty eyes and a tightness to his mouth. He insists everything went fine as he lays in bed. Steve tries to get him to eat something but he refuses.

The next two days are more of the same. Bucky leaves at the crack of dawn and returns at night. Steve’s forced idleness starts getting to him. He sticks by Clint and Wanda, taking their meals together, talking a little. There isn’t much interest in conversation between them and all they ever see are nameless support staff or FRIDAY’s avatar. In fact, Steve suspects some of the other people he encounters might be FRIDAY as well but he doesn’t dwell on this. It all feels planned to just rub it all in his face and make him feel insignificant. But another voice, a hopeful little voice whispers that maybe, like Vision, Tony just isn’t ready to face them yet.

The fourth night Bucky doesn’t come back at all. FRIDAY lets Steve know that it’s because he needs to be monitored so he’ll be spending the night in medical. Steve asks to see him, hating how croaky his voice comes out.

Her answer comes after a beat. “I’m sorry.” She doesn’t sound sorry. “He says he doesn’t want to see you.”

That’s it. Steve jumps out the window and starts calculating the closest route, dodging guards and other people in his way. He’d had his suspicions about a gorgeous blonde with blue streaks in her hair but she’s real enough as he knocks her down on his way to Lab 3. Once in the lab he crashes into a burly African American man and who would have thought it, he’s one of them, he just passes right through Steve and the pain is horrible, like a thousand needles burying themselves all over his body.

He’s still on the ground when a pair of boots enter his field of vision and he feels his cheeks burn as he looks up to take in Doctor Strange.

“I guess he really wanted to see you, James”

More steps and now a pair of grey sneakers join the boots.

“What the hell, Steve?”

“They wouldn’t let me see you, said you didn’t want…” he’s just barely starting to find the strength to try and get up again.

“FRIDAY, let go of him. I can restrain him if necessary,” the Doctor says impatiently.

Not that Steve wants to get up. He’s fine on the floor. He feels his cheeks burn as the anger and fear in his chest dissipate.

“We’ll take a little break.” Strange punctuates this with an exaggerated sigh and leaves.

Steve finally gets up and meets Bucky’s eyes. He looks terrible. Pale, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and eyes burning with anger. His friend makes an aborted attempt to speak and then just looks at the ceiling, heaving a noisy breath.

“You think this is easy for me, Steve?”

“You… you won’t tell me anything.” His voice comes out so wrong, so young. Bucky can always do that to him, reduce him to a teenager and Steve just goes with it, if that will help him convince the other man he’ll let it happen. He realizes he’s even stooping, as though trying to revert physically to his pre-serum self. Bucky’s expression remains closed off, still so foreign and closer to the Soldier’s blank mask than his old friend.

“OK. Status reports. The triggers are gone. Just like that. Magic. Doctor Strange went into my brain and bound those memories. I can access most things but they no longer feel the same. I thought I’d be happy but I’m not.” He speaks in a monotone, hands fisted on his sides.

“I don’t understand.”

Bucky scoffs. “Well, that makes two of us. So they won’t release me yet and I don’t blame them.”

Steve nods slowly. It feels like there is a lot Bucky is leaving unsaid. “They think you might hurt yourself?”

The answer to that is a one-shouldered shrug. “I think there were some things HYDRA put in there that should have been left alone. We’re working on it.”

Doctor Strange joins them again. His light blue, alien eyes hold no sympathy as they fall on Steve. “Are you two quite done?”

“Does he have a health care proxy? Or does consent not matter with you sorcerors?” Steve snarls.

A small smile plays on the Doctor’s lips. It’s all a big joke to him, isn’t it? Just mucking around in someone’s brain.

Steve turns to Bucky, raising his arms placatingly. “I’m not saying you are incompetent. I’m not! But they are messing with your mind here. The decisions you make…”

“I have a proxy.”

That takes the wind out of Steve’s sails plenty effectively. That damned sorcerer prick is till smirking. Still, Steve pushes on, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “That’s good… I mean, did the State appoint someone?”

“I asked Stark.”

It takes a moment for the words to make sense. “You what?” Steve’s voice has risen several octaves from the shock. “Are you insane?”

Bucky smiles. “You two are actually in agreement on that one,” he muses. “He told me the first thing I’m getting is a lobotomy.”

A joke, of course. Everything is a joke to Stark. And this, taking advantage of Bucky’s confused state and his guilt…

He reaches to touch the other man, perhaps to shake some sense into him but Bucky steps back from him. Another slap to the face but it’s not that odd really, Bucky had been avoiding his touches before too.

“Buck, I know you probably see this as some form of atonement but Stark… He must still be hurting so much. He won’t…”

“I hate to interrupt this touching scene,” a voice drawls. It’s that twerp, Everett Ross in a grey suit and brown leather shoes. He’s flanked by two tall men with a military look about them.

“I’m afraid visiting hours are over, Captain.”

Steve wants to put up a fight but what’s the point? Ross reads him the riot act over his rampage across the Compound and complains about how Steve is making him look bad for batting for him. Which makes no sense, why would that government jerk care about Steve’s fate? Still, he gets out of everything with just a warning and an order to receive mandatory counseling. Which he thinks is stupid but he agrees to it, anything to stay near Bucky and the rest of his team.

“What did Stark want?” he blurts after a moment. “He didn’t want me back?”

“He said to let you be Nomad or whatever the hell you want to call yourself, that it was pointless to bring back Captain America. He said that all you fight for is yourself and your little cult followers and that civilians are better off without you in the picture.”

Tony’s bitterness talking, if he had even said all those things. Steve couldn’t trust that little weasel. He forces his voice to be calm, unconcerned. “You won’t even tell me what the hell you want me to do. What we’re up against.”

Ross lets the amiable mask slip completely. He looks up at Steve, “Captain, what we’re facing is the annihilation of our planet.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I can't believe I finally managed to get through this chapter. I had a hellish writer's block that just wouldn't let me write anything. But I finally managed to push through it so here is some more. Let me know what you think (that is if anyone is left reading this thing and wants more)
> 
>  
> 
> \-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve is prepared to hate therapy. He’s had some sessions before back when he was with SHIELD and he never felt that it had helped in any way. His therapist hadn’t even been HYDRA, just incompetent. Dr. Simmons is former SHIELD too, a sixtysomething man with shrewd blue eyes, a shaved head and a powerful physique under his nondescript grey suits. Ex army. He speaks as much with his silences as he does with his words and at times gives out a paternal vibe that reminds Steve of Colonel Philips.

By the second session Steve relaxes. By the third he talks about Bucky for the first time. He knows Dr. Simmons isn’t allowed to tell him anything, he isn’t even treating Bucky but he asks in roundabout ways anyway, he pours out all his concern and all the ways his friend’s absence hurts him. Bucky has been staying at the Infirmary under observation, giving Steve very few updates and always through FRIDAY. Steve is starting to hate that lilting accent and the AI’s open disdain.

Dr. Simmons doesn’t judge him. He listens quietly to Steve’s stories as he explains what Bucky means to him, his best friend, his brother in all but blood. It is a pure and grand thing, what friendship used to be, strengthened in battle and free of mocking innuendo, that new tendency to read everything with suspicion and homosexual undertones.

On day four Steve ends up making use of the box of tissues Dr. Simmons keeps in his office. The crying jag surprises even him, he’s not sure how it happens, it’s not Bucky, or Peggy, he’s talking about the old neighborhood but without the usual filtering he’d always do, no “good old days” sanitized version. Perhaps he’s mourning for all the ways that the past is no longer a comfort to him. All he knows is that it helps and Dr. Simmons lets him get through it, silent and discrete.

Simmons gives him a break, some space and time to process. For two days he’s left without sessions, he loses even more of the routine he had been craving. He decides to not even bother anymore, he doesn’t cook for Clint and Wanda, who wants to listen to Clint’s endless self-pity or attempt to decipher Vision’s behavior and console Wanda again and again? Steve doesn’t even pester FRIDAY for news on Bucky, it’s as if he’s poured it all out on Dr. Simmons and he’s all Buckyed out.

He ends up seeking Everett Ross to try and get a sense of what role they are envisioning for him in the upcoming fight. He’s pieced together a few things from Tony’s mocking messages but he remains mostly in the dark. Might as well be a good little soldier ready to obey orders, after all they are housing him, feeding and helping his best friend. Is obedience too much to expect?

Surprisingly, Ross makes it easy. He briefs Steve to the extent that he can and there’s a shrewd pragmatism and a dry sense of humor that has Steve responding to him. “Call me Everett,” the man says and Steve finds that he can do it easily, practically forgetting Berlin and the man that mocked him when he asked whether Bucky would be getting a lawyer.  
They are in Everett’s office, small and impersonal for the most part. There is a paperweight shaped like a panther’s head and from what little Steve has observed of Everett’s interaction with T’challa there seems to be a history there. But he doesn’t ask, he’s sure it will come out at some point.

“So what do you mean by the ground team?”

“As I said,” the man explains quietly, “our main objective is to take the fight to space. But we need to be realistic. We need to prepare the entire planet for an invasion and for that we will need you. You remain a very inspirational figure.”

“Captain America is.”

“Don’t discount Steve Rogers. Do you think we can’t find a well-built blond, slap a costume on him and give him the shield? Write some inspirational speeches for him, how hard could it be? None of that would work. People respond to your charisma, your WWII history and tragic life. You appeal to the everyday people in a way few others can. They are rooting for the little guy from Brooklyn, defender of the downtrodden. Stark could give away billions and nothing would get him that level of adulation. He’s too rich, too smart, too much of a fuck up. Even when the authorities declared you a criminal, even with footage of what you and your gang did in Bucharest, Berlin and Leipzig people want to believe that you were fighting the man with nothing but their best interests at heart.”

“All I want is to help people,” Steve grinds out. “It’s not a popularity contest, right from the start all Tony did was antagonize me. Do you think I could lead a team like this?” He hugs himself then quickly shifts that pathetic body language, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you think I wanted this division between us?” His voice comes out wrong, too tight but he keeps his head up high.

Everett sighs. “I frankly don’t see that in your actions,” he says diplomatically. “But anyway, you don’t have to worry about working with Stark. He will be focusing on the space fight. You and the other Earthbound Avengers won’t be dealing with him at all.”

Earthbound… all of a sudden there are Earthbound Avengers and Space Avengers and Everett explains that Tony wants Wanda, Vision, Doctor Strange and a new woman Steve hasn’t heard of, a Captain Carol Danvers. Steve will get Clint, Natasha, some Inhumans Fury has rustled up and probably Ant Man and the Wasp if Pym can be persuaded. Also the young Spider-Man but as a reserve and very unhappy about being barred from the fight though willing to train with them.

“So what, are you telling me Bucky will be going to space?”

The look Everett gives him is layered in frustration and pity in a way that makes a cold feeling break out in Steve’s chest, a sense that there are things the other man knows about Bucky’s state that Steve isn’t privy to. The man’s expression quickly goes back to a blank, polite mask.

“Barnes is a tough one to place. We definitely know that we can’t have him in a team with you.”

“You know what a force we were together in the war,” Steve says slowly.

Everett looks away for a moment then back at Steve, seemingly bracing himself. “All evaluations and common sense show that in a team with Barnes he will be your primary concern. This would not be conductive to the success of the mission.”

Steve shoots up from his chair. “That’s a load of crap, Ross. I fought in a team with Bucky in the War and from my entire team he was the only one who was lost and now you sit here and give me this… this…” He shouldn’t have opened up to Dr. Simmons. He thought the man would help him, he wanted so much to get better but of course he was only looking for dirt on him, he’s on Stark’s payroll. How could Steve have been so careless.

Ross is still seated, staring up, unfazed. “You lost him once. Do you think you’d just sit by and see him lost again? Your actions in the so called Civil War indicate otherwise. You let your entire team be captured at Leipzig just to escape with Barnes. You took Barnes alone to a fight against a man that you knew could brainwash him into fighting you. The fact that neither of you wanted to even entertain this thought truly worries me. He is an enormous blind spot for you and he himself sees it.”

Steve sits down again heavily. “Don’t punish him for my mistakes. He’s suffered enough.”

The other man nods, his expression softening to a sympathy Steve suspects is not completely fake. “Barnes will be rehabilitated. Stark will not stop until he’s satisfied of that and you know how persistent he is.”

Tony… of course Tony is in charge of this and rubbing in Steve’s face how he’s the one who can help Bucky, such a saint. A sharp pain hits above Steve’s left temple, the spike of anger strong enough for a physical manifestation. At least the serum saves him from what would have followed in the old days, those marathon migraines in a dark room which would break out even though he’d try so hard to calm his nerves and stave them off. They’d come with every job he lost out on, with every time he’d see his mother work herself down to the bone and still stare at her calculations in despair as the money was never enough, accepting handouts from the Barnes’s and all the ways he had to keep trying to keep his head above water, keep breathing, keep fighting.

The next morning he leaves a message for Natasha. It would be good to have her back, if nothing else, to help deal with Clint. Next he calls Sam. He hasn’t heard from him since he left to check on his mother. He needs Sam by his side to help keep him grounded, as ironic as that is for a man so comfortable in the air, Sam is one of the most grounded people he knows.

Sam doesn’t answer at first. For an entire day there’s nothing. Steve tries his cell, sends him an email and the next morning he even briefly ponders putting up a green couch for sale on Craigslist in Connecticut. It’s not a code he’s willing to burn yet so he waits. The silence unsettles Steve. What is happening to them? Are they just fracturing more and more? What will be left? He tries to explain it away, Sam is probably busy or perhaps he’s even sulking, Steve should have called earlier to touch base, ask about the man’s mother. He hadn’t been a good friend.

Sam does call the next day and it’s a very impersonal call, an undercurrent of hostility and coldness in everything he says. His mother is still very weak and confused, he refuses to discuss his finances and Steve walks on eggshells with him, carefully navigating away from any sore subjects and in particular Bucky even when the other man brings him up. There’s too much jealousy there.

“When are you coming back?”

“Missed me?”

“Of course we have.”

Sam chuckles. “Yeah, I could tell.”

“Well?”

“I don’t know. So far I haven’t been asked back.”

“It’s probably some oversight. Things are busy here. I’ll ask around…”

“Don’t. I can make a phone call. I’m not a baby. I don’t need you fighting my battles.”

“Sam…”

The other man sighs heavily then seems to finally get to what he had wanted to say, voice tight with misery. “I tried to call Rhodes. Did you know he got discharged from the army?”

“I… no… Sam, I had no idea.”

“Yeah… no details or anything but no big surprise. The crash had been… it looked very bad.”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” Steve says softly.

“I guess I’m not as good at that as you.” He gives out a disgusted snort, makes a false start as though he wants to take back the harsh words but ends up saying nothing. “I’ll call you if I know more about what I’ll be doing,” he finally says and hangs up.

Steve lets the phone fall on the carpet then simply lays back on his bed staring blankly at the ceiling. The mattress – it’s a different room but Steve could swear this is the same mattress he had handpicked when he was furnishing his old bedroom – it supports his body firmly, hugging him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woah, it took forever to update this! I'm so sorry but I just couldn't find time to type it out and I was also not so happy with it. I'm feeling a bit better about it so here it is. A minor spoiler for Homecoming, not sure if I'll include much canon from it and a reference to Rogers' looks in IW.
> 
> Tell me what you think in your comments! Love you all, I've gotten so much wonderful feedback in this and so many kudos! I'm very grateful!

Steve has worked with PR people. He doesn’t like it but he understands that it is a necessary evil. He has known Marta, the Avengers PR person, on loan from SI, since Sokovia when she’d pulled miracles to salvage their reputation. His last interaction with her had been right after Lagos. It had been too urgent for her to fly over so her instructions had arrived in the form of an emailed statement and rapidfire messages to his phone. “Don’t wash the grime off your face. Look straight at the camera. Do not under ANY circumstances allow Miss Maximoff to speak to ANYONE”. He’d done as instructed with the smell of death still in his nostrils and literal blood on his hands.

“We regret the loss of life“, he ended somberly, Natasha’s comforting presence on his right. Marta had had instructions even for that. “Romanoff, people know her. Don’t let this be Wilson’s first major appearance.”

Sam who had washed the blood and shoot off his skin and changed his clothes to go on Wanda babysitting duty. Mostly to protect her from reporters though even if they had reached her, the near catatonic girl curled up on the bed wouldn’t have given them any soundbites.

So Steve squared his shoulders and faced the sea of reporters clamoring for his attention even though he’d told them right from the start that they wouldn’t be answering any questions. The cacophony of voices joined the rhythmic, angry chanting from the people gathered outside. All screaming for their blood.

Steve had thought of Marta from time to time after the so-called Civil War as his team tried to control their image and all the misinformation about them. He knew he fooled no one with his blackened uniform and his beard. He didn’t even bother with a helmet. The press had dubbed him Nomad and he accepted gladly the new identity, It was much easier to bear.

They ended up releasing two video statements to online sources Clint had chosen, probably with Natasha’s help. Sam hadn’t liked it, said it made them look like terrorists. He’d refused to appear on camera. Poor Sam had missed his chance for a proper, heroic debut.

Clint and Wanda flanked Steve, Wanda on his left, beautiful and solemn, decked in red leather, Clint clutching his iconic bow. Steve was the only one to speak. “All we want is to help people. It is all we have ever wanted. That’s what the Avengers stood for. We answer to everyday people, not any government or organization. If you need us, we will be there.”

They’d gotten a mixed reaction, far more positive in the US than anywhere else which was a pity since they couldn’t return. They kept their operations in Africa. Leftovers from Hydra, Rumlow’s group and a few others, natural disasters, civil disputes. It was a continent that needed them. They wandered off as far as North Africa but still returned, always in orbit around Wakanda and Bucky.

If Steve is honest with himself, he knows that had Tony not called them back they would have eventually moved on to Europe. A lot easier to make sense of the politics, a lot easier for a predominantly Caucasian team to hide, easier to make an impact. Most of the good they had done in Africa had been underreported in the Western press.

Marta drops in on Steve unannounced. He opens his door and in she storms, comically short and buzzing with energy, her rough smoker’s voice barking orders on her phone at the same time as she speaks to him.

“What is this, Rogers, are you serious with this hair?”

He’d shaved his beard in preparation for Bucky’s reawakening, unsteady hands revealing again his unlined features. He’d felt as though the stress and pain of the past year should have left some mark but he looked as fresh-faced as ever. He’d wanted to do something about his hair too but hadn’t been comfortable asking T’challa for a barber.

She sets up a hair appointment for him, even says something about a bleaching but he catches her eye and does a cutting gesture across his throat. Marta rolls her eyes and settles for scheduling a haircut.

She hangs up and appraises him silently. She then explains that he has a public appearance coming up. The people know he’s returned and it’s high time to address them.

It’s in two days on National television, a panel with journalists from all major networks. A prop piece with preapproved questions, he’ll do just fine. She doesn’t even ask if he’ll do it, she just starts going through them with him. Questions about life on the run, about his comments on the suspension of the Accords, about what it’s like to be back under one roof with the other Avengers…

Marta laughs. “This question about your interpersonal relations, that’s the jackpot. All of them are asking this in one way or another. So I want you to lie through your teeth. Lie, lie and lie some more. You’re doing great, you’re happy to be back, you’re healing, etc.”

He smiles. “Shouldn’t you be saying that to Stark?”

“Mr Stark is a busy man. His popularity remains at about the same level as always plus he does his own press because he’s evil and wants to send me to an early grave.” 

Steve changes the subject. “Will there be any questions about… about the Winter Soldier?”

A flash of pity passes through her face, her eyes widening slightly behind her thick framed glasses.

“No. James Barnes is a walk out subject. They know better than to mention him. The public doesn’t know he’s back on US soil anyway. They don’t mention him, you don’t mention him and we introduce him at a later date.

Steve nods, his heart lighter and for the next two hours he perfects his routine, his half-truths, his deflections and his non-answers. He becomes good, too good almost.

“No, don’t sound so rehearsed,” Marta chides. “Don’t lose your awkwardness, it’s part of your charm.”

The day of the interview he drinks the sight of New York from the tinted windows of the limo, not willing to acknowledge the lurch of happiness in his chest at finally leaving the Compound. He stares his fill and wishes once more that he could be free to live in the city, a small apartment, kind elderly neighbors, no paparazzi dogging his every step. He knows it is just a stupid dream. He is not anonymous and his New York no longer exists. 

He stares at his reflection in the changing room mirror long and hard and despite the stage fright churning in his stomach he reminds himself that he was made for this, literally made for this and it will be fine. The people need him and he needs them too.

As he’s ushered to the stage he catches Marta’s anxious look. “I’m sorry” she mouths at him. He wonders what she means but then his eyes fall on the second chair on the stage, on Stark’s sprawled form. Steve sits, dazed, Stark’s smile widens and he leans over for an one armed hug. He’s so close that Steve can smell his aftershave mixed with a sharp scent, perhaps alcohol, this is Stark after all, and he could swear he hears Stark’s teeth clank closed and grind behind that wide, picture-perfect smile.

Steve remembers his answers but it’s unnerving to lie and twist the truth right in front of the other man. It’s good to be under one roof again. (technically true). They have been training together (total lie), it wasn’t really a Civil War, mainly a disagreement that got out of hand (he flew away with Bucky while Rhodes lay in a heap of twisted metal on the runway). Now that the Avengers are together they can begin to heal (he likes to think that there is some truth to that one).

“We’re like a family,” Stark adds. “Sure, somewhat dysfunctional and our divorce flattened a German airport but there is still a lot of affection there. So yeah, the band is getting back together, right Cap?”

“The world needs the Avengers,” Steve says dutifully and he’s not lying, one way or another he needs to get these extraordinary people to work together and become a team again. He fixes his gaze on Stark, pleased to see the pleasant mask slip just a little, the way Stark presses his hands on the top of his thighs to steady them. He seems to be battling a migraine, his eyes glitter behind his obnoxious, red-tinted glasses and he almost brings up his hand to rub on his temple a couple of times. 

The journalists ask Stark about selling Avengers tower. It’s not news to Steve but it still hurts to hear.

“All the memories you must have from that place,” Anderson Cooper prompts gently. “It can’t have been an easy decision.”

Stark shrugs. “The place has taken so much damage, I’m actually glad I managed to get it off my hands,” he says carelessly. “The Avengers have an HQ. We don’t need to be a target right in the middle of Manhattan.”

It does feel significant to Steve, for all the bad memories there are a lot of wonderful memories too. Mornings spent on his own floor painting the city in the first morning light. Hanging in the lab with the two resident geniuses and trying to keep up with what they were doing. Even the awful smell of Natasha’s cooking who seemed to have an obsession with sticking boiled cabbage in everything she made.

The camera turns back to Steve. “It doesn’t matter where we live. We’re still a team,” he says simply.

He catches up with Stark backstage. They are getting their makeup removed in silence. “I’ll give you a ride back,” Stark says quietly.

The car is driving itself which allows Stark to bury his face in his tablet, typing and dragging on the screen. Steve stares at his harsh features, the new wrinkles and unhealthy, almost greenish hue of his complexion that the stage makeup had been hiding.

After it becomes clear that Stark is planning to ignore him the entire way back, Steve breaks the silence. “Why did you blindside me like that in the interview? Weren’t you afraid I’d go off script?”

The other man sighs. “It was a spur of the moment thing. I didn’t go that much off script either,” he says without taking his eyes off his screen.

“But why not tell me?”

Stark gives him a “what can you do” gesture.

“Are you any good tapping on that screen with a migraine?”

He stills for just a second. “I could have a migraine, a stroke and a partial lobotomy and I’d still be ten times smarter than you.”

It’s as though “childish” is that man’s default mode. Not that he’s lying. There are times when Steve wonders what it must be like for Stark relating with normal people. How stupid they must all feel to him, the mental equivalent of Pietro Maximoff zipping through a slow-motion world.

“Why’d you give me a ride?”

“A) Fernando, your driver, is busy elsewhere and b) I could see you wanted to speak to me backstage and I couldn’t have you blurting out anything stupid in an unsecured area. I would hate for this masterful performance to have been for nothing.”

“Why’d you do it if you hated it so much?”

Stark takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes slowly, the pain must be getting worse. “Well, believe it or not, I have my own fans. People who were firmly on my side in our little feud and their opinion of you wasn’t so great. For some it was because we fought and they like me more. For others it came after, the types who tend to root for the underdog and I guess I came across pretty god damn pitiful in some of my interviews and interactions with the press after all you Avengers fucked off and left me holding the bag. So for those people it wasn’t enough to say we’ve kissed and made up, they had to catch a live show. I was just doing my bit.” Tony does turn to face him then and Steve wishes he’d wear his glasses again. That steady, hazel gaze is hard to meet. Steve feels he could have coped with anger, with sadness or bitterness but the main emotion he reads is scorn. He tries to steel himself, subconsciously tightens his fists, the echo of their last violent encounter between them ringing in his ears. Repulsors whining, his shield clanking against titanium, Bucky’s grunt when Stark kicked him in the face.

“The public will buy it because they weren’t there. In Siberia,” he whispers miserably. “But you didn’t mean any of that.”

“Are you touched in the head? I sent Marta to prepare you, what’d she do, brainwash you? What about anything that’s been going on make you think I can stand the sight of you fuckers?”

Steve briefly considers wrenching the door open and making a run for it. To go where? Stupid plan. He forces himself to speak instead. “I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to be a team again. You know the stakes. You need to let go of this anger and work with us. You need us. The planet needs us.”  
“Motherfucker…” Tony’s voice rises in pitch and he laughs hysterically. “That’s just… I can’t believe this. Listen to me you star spangled piece of shit if you want to be in a team with me better learn to breathe in space cause I’m sure not making a suit for you. I’ll do interviews with you. I’ll get photographed with you, whatever it takes for the public to go crazy for you again, I’ll do it. I got Vision romancing that deranged fucking witch to try and stabilize her. I’m advocating leniency for Wilson and to reinstate his benefits because he was too busy spit shining your boots to use his goddam brain. I’m even trying to find something for Barton to do now that his wife doesn’t want anything to do with him and the Council doesn’t want him back. You think I want him back? But he’s this close to eating a fucking bullet and I don’t want that either.”

Steve swallows hard his mind racing as the realities of his team’s situation hit him mercilessly. And Stark is leaving someone out. “What about Bucky?” he asks, barely hearing his own voice over the ringing in his ears.

The other man draws in a sharp breath. “My dealings with Barnes are my business.”

“You earned his trust. He feels guilty for your parents. For everyone that he was forced to kill. He’ll let you take your revenge on him. He’ll let you do anything to him.”

“He doesn’t need you to be his advocate. You’ve made a piss poor job of it, Rogers.” Tony’s voice is dripping with venom.

They’ve arrived. They’ve been at the Compound for a while now, staring at each other in the dark car. Neither man backing out, showing weakness. The bad lighting has reduced Stark to basically a skull all sharp angles and hollows. A confused fondness twists at Steve’s insides, is Stark sleeping at all? Is he eating enough? All those aches and limitations of his scarred body, does he ever listen to them? It’s like seeing a wounded animal snarling and snapping at a man who means it no harm. It isn’t true, of course. Stark holds all the cards here. Their fate is in his hands, he’s playing them all, deciding for them like he’s always done, always several steps ahead just moving them around like pawns in his chessboard.

Stark is the first to break. He murmurs a curse and just gets out of the car, picking up his things with choppy, angry movements. 

“Please exit the vehicle,” the car asks politely after a while. Steve needs to be told twice before he finds the strength to move.


End file.
